Three US citizens to be released

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Three US citizens to be released

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Reuters

The US has confirmed three of its citizens imprisoned in Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, are to be released in a prisoner exchange.

The others are former Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-********* radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, the Biden administration says.

Several others are also believed to be part of the deal.

There has been speculation for days of a major swap between Russia and Western countries, which was heightened after several prisoners in Russia were moved from their prison cells to unknown locations.

Evan Gershkovich

US journalist

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was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony earlier this month, after being convicted on espionage charges.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter was first arrested last March while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow, by security services.

Prosecutors accused him of working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), accusations that Mr Gershkovich, the WSJ and the US government vociferously deny.

It marked the first conviction of a US journalist for espionage in Russia since the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago. After his initial arrest he was held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

Paul Whelandata:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Reuters

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, 54, was given a 16-year jail sentence in 2020 after being arrested in Moscow on suspicion of spying in 2018.

The ex-US Marine is a citizen of four countries – the US, Canada, the *** and the Ireland. His lawyer said he was being held in a prison in the Mordovia region.

After being discharged from the military in 2008 for bad conduct, he become a security consultant and started to travel back-and-forth to Russia for work.

In December 2018, he was arrested by Russia’s FSB state security agency, which claimed he had been “caught spying” in Moscow. His family has always denied the charges.

Alsu Kurmashevadata:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Reuters

On the same day Mr Gershkovich was convicted, Russian-********* journalist

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was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in a medium-security prison after a secret trial.

An editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US government, she was convicted of spreading false information about the Russian military.

Her husband Pavel Butorin has said that was she arrested over the book “Say no to war”, which the radio’s Tatar-Bashkir language service published last year and was a collection of stories about Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine.

Ms Kurmasheva holds US and Russian citizenship and lives in Prague with her husband and two daughters.

She was stopped in June 2023 at Kazan International Airport, after traveling to Russia to visit her mother, where both her passports were taken. She was then arrested in October as she waited for her passports to be returned.

This story will be updated as the names of more released prisoners are confirmed

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